A Historical Overview of Team Foundation Server (TFS) from 2005 to 2015

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the first shipped version of Team Foundation Server (TFS 2005). The original blog post includes a link to a Radio TFS interview with Martin Woodward and Greg Duncan.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the day we shipped the first version of TFS – TFS 2005. It doesn’t seem that long ago but we sure have come a long way. The other day I recorded a Radio TFS interview with Martin Woodward and Greg Duncan. Check it out if you are interested. I have to admit I haven’t listened to it. I never listen to my own interviews – it just feels creepy I sure had a lot of fun doing it though. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2016/03/17/10th-anniversary-of-team-foundation-server/

Although the first version was named TFS 2005, the product is actually 11 years old in 2016 because development started in 2002. Brian Harry, the original architect, left Microsoft in 2002 to return to his farm in North Carolina, where he continued to work on TFS while driving a tractor.

The story begins with Microsoft’s problematic Visual Source Safe (VSS). After graduating, Brian worked at two startups, the second of which was acquired by Microsoft and became VSS. He then worked on the .NET CLR until version 1.1 before leaving Microsoft in 2002.

Microsoft decided to start TFS development and allowed Brian to set up his own team in North Carolina. Over three years his team grew from 2 to about 30 people. The first version, planned for November 2005, was finally released on March 17, 2006 after many delays and a harsh reprimand from his manager.

Brian Harry is a Microsoft Fellow and the General Manager of the ALM product line. The following sections describe the official history of TFS releases.

TFS 2005

TFS 2005 provided core ALM capabilities such as work items, source control, and builds. Installation was notoriously difficult, often taking 2–3 days because of complex IIS and SSRS dependencies and poor documentation.

The Team Explorer UI of that era was largely written by Brian himself.

In 2005 the author migrated a large codebase from VSS to TFS, dramatically improving check‑in speed by using HTTP‑based source control.

TFS 2008

This release focused on usability improvements and performance gains, but did not add major new features. Installation remained problematic.

The author used TFS 2008 to run the first TFS training (VSTSRealWorld) after the Sichuan earthquake, bringing together developers from 20 companies to build an orphan‑adoption app.

TFS 2010

TFS 2010 introduced a management console that simplified installation and configuration, making deployment much easier.

Microsoft began “dogfooding” TFS internally; by 2010 the user base grew from a few dozen to nearly 3,000 developers across the DevDiv division. Significant architectural changes were made, including the introduction of Project Collection databases.

Browser access was added via the TFS Web Access (TFSWA) component, originally based on the acquired TeamPrise product.

TFS 2012

This milestone release added strong support for agile processes (backlog, sprint, burndown) and shortened the release cycle from two years to three months.

The author switched from a Windows Networking MVP role to focus on Visual Studio ALM after meeting Brian and being attracted by the vibrant ALM community.

During this period the author implemented TFS projects for several major Chinese companies, including Huawei, JD.com, and Shanghai Bawei.

Relevant blog posts: Part 1 , Part 2 .

TFS 2013

TFS 2013 further matured the product, improving user experience and adding cross‑platform support for Java (Eclipse, IDEA) and Xcode.

Visual Studio Online (now Azure DevOps Services) was launched, offering a cloud‑hosted TFS with a rapid three‑week release cadence.

Release Management capabilities were introduced after acquiring InRelease.

TFS 2015

The latest version (as of the article) further strengthens agile support with customizable Kanban boards and swimlanes.

Key improvements include a Node.js‑based cross‑platform build engine, browser‑based DevOps pipeline management, and a new marketplace for extensible plugins.

For detailed feature lists see the linked VSTS blog posts (Update 2 RC2, template customization, work‑item deletion, mixed Git/TFVC repositories, marketplace, etc.).

Celebrating a decade of TFS evolution showcases how a product can grow from a small farm‑based project to a cornerstone of modern DevOps.

TFS 10‑Year Anniversary – Happy Birthday!

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